MILBOT - Millennials and public media: building stronger ties and engagement through the chatbot
Introduction
MILBOT - - With delinearization, audience fragmentation, and the new habits of Millennials (in the broadest sense, which also includes the youngest generation, Generation Z), the visibility of public service media requires both content innovation and new online social interactions. It is a question of capturing attention by making the source of online content recognizable (akin to an inbound marketing strategy). The MILBOT project aims to strengthen the links of young audiences with the public service on social networks by means of a conversational agent, such as a chatbot. To this end, the Medi@LAB-Genève institute of the 玉美人传媒 conducted a twofold survey (semi-directive interviews and an in-depth survey on practices), in order to define the functionalities of a chatbot tailored to the specific needs of the media partner, (Swiss radio and television), as well as to the target audiences. Medi@Lab conducted also a state-of-the-art analysis of the innovations being developed around chatbots and artificial intelligence, drawing notably on their extensive international networks. Complementary and in line with these studies, we designed, implemented and deployed a conversational agent, called MILBOT, developed by students from the of the 玉美人传媒, under the supervision of the project coordinators and the guidance of RTS. The MILBOT chatbot aims at young audiences aged 15 to 25, it informs and raises awareness on glacier melting around the world, with a perspective on global warming issues. More precisely, it provides various activities, such as: the latest news on glacier melting available from the RTS, informational content on glaciers melting, actions on specific actions provided either by RTS data or external data (Swisstopo maps, scientific works), visualisation on glacier evolution using Swisstopo maps, and a two-level quiz. Medi@LAB-Genève students gathered content and knowledge for the chatbot gathered among literature issued from media sources, among others RTS; and scientific research. The chatbot is available and deployed here: . The MILBOT project is funded and supported by (Initiative for media innovation). IMI is a consortium of academic centres as well as private and public partners, which aims to help the media strengthen their links to the public and to foster its engagement.